Local city and county procedures hamper housing development, Bay Area legislator says

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California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, argued during a Realtor housing summit in Los Angeles that local governments should have less control over housing decisions. “There are limits to local control,” he said during a keynote address at the California Association of Realtors housing summit on Thursday, Sept. 6. (Photo by Jeff Collins, the Orange County Register/SCNG)

California cities and counties need to give up some control of the housing approval process if the state is going to solve its housing shortage, state Sen. Scott Wiener said Thursday, Sept. 6, at a Realtor housing conference in Los Angeles.

The McKinsey Global Institute estimatesCalifornia has a shortfall of at least 2 million homes, leading to less affordable housing and increased homelessness, the San Francisco Democrat said at a California Association of Realtors housing summit in Century City.

“We have to make sure that we’re building (homes) at all income levels,” said Wiener, author of two housing bills aimed at streamlining the local approval process. But, he said, “cities guard that prerogative.”

Local control, Wiener said, is good when it delivers good results. But when it’s not, it needs to be changed.

“There are limits to local control,” Wiener said. “Local control is not biblical.”

Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislative leaders have been pushing to speed up approval of new housing development, advocating that some projects should get a green light without local review. The California League of Cities and local officials have resisted efforts to streamline the approval process, however, saying it shifts control to the state, away from local jurisdictions.

Wiener’s housing legislation included Senate Bill 35, a 2017 bill since signed into law that allows developers to get expedited approvals when local governments fail to meet state-mandated homebuilding goals. So far, just 13 California jurisdictions have met those goals.

He also authored SB 827, mandating denser and taller development near transit lines. The measure died in committee in April after facing stiff opposition from cities across the state. Wiener said he’s revising the bill and plans to reintroduce it next year.

“Housing (is) really the only major foundational policy area where for many years we say, ‘let them have total local control.’ We would never tolerate that for education,” he said. “We want to give local control to the school districts, but the state sets standards. … That’s where we need to get with housing.”

Thursday’s conference brought together more than two dozen developers, state and local leaders and housing advocates to discuss solutions to the state’s housing shortage. Many said the answer is to speed up homebuilding, which has failed to keep up with population growth for decades, they said.

“We see homelessness. And not just the real obvious type, where people are mentally ill and drug addicted. That’s just one segment of homelessness,” he said. “There’s a whole other segment that we don’t really see. The ones who don’t have any mental health or drug addiction issues, but are living in their cars or they’re living in shelters. … It’s simply because people cannot afford housing.”

Long commutes because of housing costs also are undermining California’s climate goals, Wiener added. Forty percent of emissions are caused by transportation as people move further and further away from where they work.

“It’s not rocket science how it happened,” Wiener said. “We have a de facto housing-last policy. … It’s certainly not a priority to have enough housing for everyone.”

With lower home prices, more Californians could afford a home purchase in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the previous quarter, but the California Association of Realtors reports higher interest rates lowered affordability from the previous year for most counties.